As part of the BBC’s current How Wales Works season, Sunday Times Education Editor Sian Griffiths has produced a half hour programme called “It’s an Education”. It’s available here on iPlayer and here on Youtube.

I urge you to watch it, if only to see how distorted a picture of education in England, Wales and the wider world it paints. Very little in the programme turns out to be as it seems, and it’s an education in how some people have chosen to portray education as being in crisis.

The set up​Ms Griffiths sets out her stall quickly. She claims that education in Wales is going downhill fast. Whereas it used to be great, it isn’t any longer. Here’s what she and others say as she sets the film up.

Sian Griffiths:“I was very happy here (in her St David’s secondary) and it kinda set me on my career as a journalist.”​Here’s St David's on a map. It’s about as coastal as you can get, clearly. The city has a population of 1,800 people, and the wider county – essentially a line due south from Cardigan on the map below – has a population of around 123,000. SIan Griffiths old school is Ysgol Dewi Sant, which has had a bit of a torrid time of late.

This is a serious allegation. It's also not true. The school did narrowly avoid closure in 2015, but it was judged a good school at the time and it was not because of poor educational performance. The protest featured in the film was against plans to close the English-language-instruction Ysgol Dewi Sant and to replace it with another school entirely - in Fishguard, 15 miles away. The closure plan was due to wider issues in local education provision. It was not about performance standards as the film suggest.

David Lloyd, Chair of Governors. “The school was in crisis. No leadership. Anarchy in the staffroom. We couldn’t allow this period of uncertainty to go on any longer.”

This quote is probably an explanation as to why the governing body finally appointed the acting head teacher as permanent head in 2015. The uncertainty over the school's future had meant that Pembrokeshire had advised the school not to appoint a permanent head. The crisis David Lloyd refers to was a crisis of leadership by the governors as much as anyone, not of pupil academic performance. As this report suggests, Ysgol Dewi Sant was “the best school in Pembrokeshire” at the time.

This BBC report makes it clear that the protest which features in “It’s an Education” was against a proposal to close the school in a reorganisation of secondary schools in Pembrokeshire. The BBC report gave the following reason for the actions of Pembrokeshire council, which was pressing for change:

“Pembrokeshire currently has eight secondary schools in total, but there's a 20% surplus of places.Also, only one of those eight schools is a Welsh medium secondary school, and that's in the north east of the county, in Crymych, so there is a desire to address a growing demand for Welsh medium in other parts of the county.

The council says it would like to improve educational standards, to tackle poor school buildings, and also to take advantage of the 21st Century Schools programme, which would see half the cost of any new school buildings paid for by the Welsh government.“

It does not imply in any way that Ysgol Dewi Sant faced closure because of poor performance or a crisis of leadership.

David Lloyd: “We were, on reflection, a community that was sleepwalking to oblivion.”

‘Oblivion’ being, clearly, a community with no secondary school, with a school closed for reasons exterior to the school itself, closure of “the best school in Pembrokeshire”.

Sian Griffiths: “What was going on in St David’s was part of a much bigger problem across Wales. For six years, Welsh results in international tests revealed an alarming decline”

Jack Marwood Dodgy Graph Warning(tm). See if you can spot why:

Oooh. Oooh. Oh. Just look at that y axis. Look at it. Have a good look. It's an object lesson in how to distort already dubious figures. Now look at this:

That’s what this should look like. Or what it should look like if these numbers could be graphed in this way. They can't.

As Jack Worth has pointed out via Twitter, PISA scores are actually scaled score with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100. No, don't stop reading just because some maths has turned up. Come back! All that means is that there is no zero PISA score. Which means that there's no scale which you can reasonably use for a y-axis. Which means the graph in the programme is misleading and Not Even Wrong.

You could probably compare England to other countries to make England look bad, if you wanted to. And comparing Wales to England in this way is also fairly meaningless, too, for reasons I'll come on to later.

For a lot more detail on what PISA has to say about Wales, read this. It contains lots of good data, which “suggests that the education system in Wales is amongst those which are successful at overcoming the effects of socio-economic background.” (P37) and “The performance gap between the most advantaged and disadvantaged pupils is relatively low in Wales, compared with other OECD countries, and pupils in Wales are relatively well able to overcome the disadvantages of their background.”

“For England and Northern Ireland (with differences of 41 and 45 points respectively) socio-economic background is seen to have a greater effect than the average in OECD countries. In contrast, Scotland and Wales (with differences of 37 and 35 points respectively) show an effect of socio-economic background which is lower than the OECD average.” (p92)

Of course, single score means, such as overall PISA Mathematics scores, obscure the complexities of the underlying data, as discussed above. So it’s worth looking at the spread of maths scores PISA recorded for Wales in 2012 compared to the OECD average, which Ms Griffiths doesn’t do. Here they are:

Interpreting these results rather depends, as always, whether you believe that pupils or schools are the primary driver of results. And as regular readers of this blog will be beginning to understand, there is a good argument to suggest that schools are the icing on a very big cake, and that this represents the efforts of the children in Wales, not of their 'schools' effectiveness'.

As it turns out, there is an in depth OECD report about Welsh education, which is available here. The OECD is of the opinion that Wales has a high proportion of low performers, underdeveloped professional development, an incoherent accountability and evaluation system, and has tried to reform too quickly in an incoherent way.

It's worth noting that there is quite a bit of criticism of PISA, and many question its assumptions, methodology and conclusions. This gives a flavour.​Random unnamed person (who turns out to Leighton Andrews, Education Minister, 2009-2013, speaking in 2010 - thanks to Chris Padden for identifying Mr Andrews) : “Schools in Wales are simply not delivering well enough at all levels of ability. This can only be described as a systemic failure.”

​This is a classic example of 'Pisa Panic', as politicians and economists demonstrate their systemic - and often deliberate - misunderstanding of education.

As Harvey Goldstein, Professor of Social Statistics, at the University of Bristol says, “We simply do not know what characteristics of the English, Singaporean, or any other system, may be responsible for its performance. It is simply not possible to make any such kind of causal inference from PISA results. What has often been termed ‘PISA Shock’, leading to‘PISA Panic’, has accompanied past releases and politicians of all persuasions, in many countries and abetted by OECD, have used the ‘evidence’ about movements up and down the tables to justify changes they wanted to make anyway to their own educational curricula and assessment systems.The best thing to do with these results is for policymakers to shrug their shoulders, stop making simplistic comparisons, ignore the media hype, and decide whether supporting PISA really is value for money.”

Luckily for politicians, evidence-free rhetoric is rarely held up to much scrutiny.

Sian Griffiths: “This year (my family is) staying in a luxury hotel, one of a chain opened by my brother, Keith”

Keith Griffiths has clearly done very well for himself both at school and work, having studied architecture at Cambridge in the 1970s, joining Arup, moving to Hong Kong before striking out on his own, eventually running one of the world’s biggest architectural practices.

Keith Griffiths:“In order to get out of St David’s you needed a good education, which was certainly provided for here in St David’s.”

This was and is almost certainly true, especially if, like both Sian and Keith, you want to attend Oxbridge. Wales clearly has many children working at the highest level.

“Testing of 11 and 14 year olds is to be abolished in Welsh schools (News Report, September 2006)”

What isn’t mentioned here is that External testing of 14 year olds in English schools was abolished in 2008, too, and writing at 11 in England has been internally assessed since 2011.

“Asian countries consistently lead the way (in PISA tests of 15 year olds)”

Casual viewers will be forgiven for not being aware that Shanghai and Hong Kong are city states, not countries, and that Singapore is an exceptionally unusual country of just 5 million people, of whom 1 in 6 are millionaires and 30% are foreign nationals.

Sian Griffiths: “In the last results Wales was bottom of the UK class”

Leaving aside the fact that in the main PISA tables, the UK is shown as a whole, not as four nations, so Wales doesn't come '43/68', it won't surprise anyone to know that Wales is also bottom of the UK class when it comes to measures such as income per capita, at 30% below England and a huge 60% lower than London, for example. England and Wales are very different countries for all sorts of reasons too obvious to go in to here.

Sian Griffiths:“It just puts Welsh kids at a massive disadvantage, and it makes me feel that they are really being short-changed that something is going wrong in the education system in Wales.”

This is a sweeping assumption on which to start the programme, and it sets the tone for the claims which are to come:

Something is wrong

Children are being short-changed

Schools are at fault

Pursuing a personal agenda

Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s director of Education and Skills, appears next. Schleicher, as with many people, takes as a given that school results are due to the efforts of schools, not children, and he quotes statistics relating to children in Shanghai, a place almost as unusual as Singapore.

Ms Griffiths then introduces a recurring theme in her programme. “At the end of the day, these kids in Wales are going to be competing on a global stage for jobs, for top university places with kids from across the world in way that hasn’t happened before. Is that why parents need to worry about these rankings?”

This is a common theme from many educational commentators. “Competing on a global stage”, “competing for top university places” and “competing with kids from across the world” are common refrains from those who have bought into the "Education is in Crisis" fallacy.

A moment’s consideration for life for the majority of children in St David's reveals how ridiculous this argument is. Clearly some of the children in Pembrokeshire might compete on a global level for the limited number of Oxbridge places. But economics doesn’t work in the way these comments suggest. Able and ambitious children will, like Ms Griffith’s brother, end up starting their own businesses and competing – on anything up to and including the global level, as Keith Griffiths has done.

The vast majority of school children are not, however, competing with those outside their own countries, and to suggest that they are is to promote a conflict which does not exist.

Sian Griffiths, speaking about Andreas Schleicher: “He said very clearly that culture starts at the top.”

No, he didn’t say that. At all.

Sian Griffiths: “Wales has the worst performing schools in the UK.”

No, it doesn’t it. It has some of the schools with low average attainment, but it – as with every part of the UK – has some of the schools with high average attainment.

Huw Lewis A.M., Minister for Education and Skills “We have instituted one of the most profound (educational) reform packages any part of the UK has seen since the second world war.”

Sian Griffiths: “In St David’s a new head was promoted to tackle the problems they faced.”

The main problem Ysgol Dewi Sant faced was that the local authority wanted to reconfigure Pembrokeshire’s secondary education provision, as reported above. As a result, the school had an acting head teacher, David Haynes, following advice from Pembrokeshire. Because Mr Haynes was not a permanent appointment, Estyn, the Welsh equivalent of Ofsted, deemed the school’s leadership and management unsatisfactory. The problems YDS faced were political, not academic.

After much to-ing and fro-ing because of the uncertainty whether or not the school would close or not, David Haynes was appointed permanent head by the school governing body. The full, complicated story is worth reading.The ‘problems Ysgol Dewi Sant faced’ were not primarily those of educational attainment, which has been good for some time, but a much more complex structural issue.

“It’s amazing, the cultural changes a headmaster can make, and the ability for teachers to feel empowered, energised, motivated, all those things.” Elizabeth Daniels, parent and mindfulness trainer

Ms Griffiths has found a child who was struggling with maths at Ysgol Dewi Sant. Her mother also happens to be a “mindfulness trainer” and in 2014, she worked with the school to implement a “ground-breaking wellbeing course at St David's Ysgol Dewi Sant.” Ms Daniels thought the school was “going downhill fast”, although – given Ms Daniels professional interest - it isn’t certain which aspect of the school she is talking about. The implication is that the teaching “wasn’t great” but there is room for doubt as to why this was deemed the case.

Hannah Daniels certainly implies that increased confidence helped her to go “from a from a U to a C in one term.”

Sian Griffiths: “In 2013, the Welsh Government introduced Numeracy and Literacy assessments. Every year pupils aged five to fourteen are scored for their maths and language skills.“

Sian Griffiths: “Categorisation is supposed to show parents how well or badly their school is performing. Last year only thirty secondaries were awarded a Green. And a couple of years ago, St David’s was awarded a Red.”

Is thirty good or bad? There’s no indication, simply an implication that this is too low. Here’s some more data. In 2015, 31 out of 211 (15%) secondary schools were in the green support category. In comparison, 6% of English secondary schools are rated Outstanding, the top category in the England – not that any comparison can or should be drawn between these two very different ways of rating schools.

There’s no explanation that criticism of St David’s was based on the lack of a permanent head teacher, or that the banding itself has been criticised for being too volatile.

Sian Griffiths: “I’m looking at this website called My Local School. But it hasn’t got the kind of information which I would find if I was looking for a school in England. In England I could pull up a school and find out its position on the kind of league table of ranking, how it compares against all the other schools in England. I can’t seem to do that here.”

There’s a lot of information on My Local School. The information Ms Griffiths says she wants – the ‘position in the class’, if you like – is an indication of the kind of children who attend the school, not the school itself. Additionally, the UK government doesn’t provide the information Ms Griffiths wants in England either. It provides similar information to the Welsh government's website, in a much less user-friendly format.

League tables, as described by Ms Griffiths, are provided by the media (Telegraph, Guardian), much to the (apparent) frustration of those who provide the information about schools, who are well aware that the variation within schools is much greater than the variation between schools. Even these league tables don’t rank schools as Ms Griffiths suggests.

Sian Griffiths: “There’s one measure that many hail as the key to success in England but which Wales continues to resist: The introduction of academy schools. And to see one of the best in action, I’ve come to Mossbourne Community Academy in the London borough of Hackney.”

Academy schools aren’t really a measure; they are more of a change to the funding structure of a school. And an equal and possibly larger number of people question whether the academy programme is having the success which is often claimed, including the House of Commons Education Select Committee, as Huw Lewis points out in the film.

Ms Griffiths unwittingly goes on to show why Mossbourne – like London - has been a huge success of late: Money and intake. Mossbourne is certainly the jewel in the academy crown, but it’s also largely in a class of one and doesn’t seem to have found a model which can be applied outside of the capital.

Peter Hughes: “An academy really is a private school in the state sector.”

No, it really isn’t. At all. In anyway whatsoever.​Then we get to see the Mossbourne Pledge in all its glory, with a class of clearly bored and resentful teenagers imbuing the school mantra with as much lifeless and dreary tedium as they clearly feel for it. For those who aren’t aware of this odd ritual, it’s simple. All children start every class with a statement that they "aspire to maintain an inquiring mind, a calm disposition and an attentive ear so that in this class and in all classes I can fulfil my true potential." It would appear that this isn’t quite delivered with Dead Poet’s Society-like fervour, and the children don’t exactly look thrilled to be at the academy (below).

Sian Griffiths, after sitting on an English class: “Hmm, well that was really interesting, actually and it made me realise that teaching is a lot more difficult that I thought. It’s really hard.”

Yes. Yes, it is.

Andrew John, Mossbourne Science teacher: “I would love to go to Llanelli or Swansea but I can’t because there’s no jobs because people are seeing out the end of their career there.”

Heaven forfend that those who have worked their way up through the Welsh education system should have the temerity of wanting to continue to do so and not simply step aside for knights in white armour from England.There are over 200 secondaries in Wales. Jobs come up regularly. Don’t be silly.

Sian Griffiths: “15 year olds have already taken the latest (PISA) tests and the results are due later this year. But in Welsh schools there are still mixed feelings about the value of PISA.”

That there are "mixed feelings about the value of PISA" is true in every country in which children take part in PISA tests. It’s not uniquely Welsh to question the value of pitting countries against each other in the way the OECD does. Many people do. (Oh, and whilst we're at it, have a wild guess which global education company designed the 2015 PISA tests? Go on, give it your best shot. The answer is here*.)

Sian Griffiths: “They will face the same challenge: To make a Welsh Education system that can compete with the rest of the world. Is it really enough, it today’s age, when this generation of kids are going to face a world that is more ferociously competitive when it come to getting a job than probably any other in history. Don’t we want our schools to be academically excellent, places where our kids can really achieve the best that they can do? Children do only get one chance at an education and we all of us have a responsibility to make that the best that it can possibly be.”

No, no, no. This is a simple summary of the worldview pushed by a particular group of interested parties, dubbed the Global Education Reform Movement by Pasi Sahlberg. Children in St David's and the places like it are not "competing with the rest of the world". That's not how economics works. Those working in supermarkets, hairdressers, building sites and most offices are competing on a local scale, not a global one.

Yes, we need some people to compete on a global scale, but, realistically, this number of people is crushingly, vanishingly small. To build an education system based on the needs of such a tiny minority is ludicrous beyond all words. We need a system which enables children to get an education which allows them to play a meaningful role in the community in which they live. Not everyone can, or should, aspire to global leadership.

Hardly anyone will argue that secondary schools shouldn't aim for academic excellence, or that children shouldn't achieve the best qualifications that they can, and to suggest that many people feel differently is silly. But presenting Welsh schools as being in crisis is simply daft, and this programme is a perfect example of the utterly dishonest way in which many people seek to claim education is 'failing' children.

I wish you were the education editor of The Sunday Times. It's hard to believe that the current editor - Sian Griffiths - really said "...it made me realise that teaching is a lot more difficult that I thought. It’s really hard." There is so much in this little film that reveals Sian Griffiths' shallow outlook on deeply complex matters or perhaps it is simply a contempt for the audience? There's the fudging of facts, the lack of insight into the importance of context, the repeated 'competing on a global stage...', the reiteration of 'PISA Panic' with no critical overview and the glib acceptance of the highly controversial point of view that academies are the answer (despite all the evidence; I thought we were in a new age of evidence-based teaching?!) It's a great relief that we can read insightful critiques of such output online. Thanks for taking the time to break it down as you have.
'It's An Education' sounds a bit like the American film 'Waiting for Superman' where teachers just want to get 'tenure' so they can sit around doing nothing and Charter schools are the only ones who want to 'tackle poverty' with a new found sense of purpose. Your analysis of 'It's an Education' draws attention to the subtleties inherent in interpreting data and it also mentions "...a particular group of interested parties" that needs to be far more understood by teachers in the UK, especially in England. As such it forms the basis of a more insightful critique of the situation than the one offered by Sian Griffiths.
Keep up the good work.

Reply

Janet Downs

3/2/2016 08:07:37 am

This is an important post. It debunks the assumptions made in the TV programme which takes it as 'truth' that education in Wales is 'failing'.

My reasons for anger are the same as yours - the repetition of negative rhetoric; the implication that academies would be part of the solution; the suggestion that experienced teachers in Wales are just sitting it out until retirement. And more, much more. You've speared them.

I'm fed up with Schleicher comparing countries with Shanghai. He admitted to the Ed Select Committee that 25% of the cohort was missing from Shanghai's PISA tests in 2012. That makes the results dodgy. But he still cites them.

He doesn't seem to have read the OECD report on Wales which said reform was moving too fast and risked 'reform fatigue'. Ye Gods, if that's fast, then what has the pace of reform been like in England since Gove burst onto the scene? Manic, I would suggest, and best summed up by the comment from the new Chair of the Ed Select Committee that the DfE approach to major changes is 'think first, act later'.

Loved your description of the Mossbourne conscripts having to repeat that dreary mantra before every lesson. If they couldn't summon up enthusiasm for the camera, then what does it tell us of how they respond when not being filmed? And for all the blather about Mossbourne's comprehensive intake - the proportion of previously high-attainers in GCSE cohorts increases year on year. Just check out the DfE's school performance tables.

Thanks for this. My mum's from Rhostyllenso so I've a whole bunch of cousins who did school in Wales. I'd like for us to be generally less addicted to panic. That would be helpful for education, I think.

Reply

Paul Hopkins

6/2/2016 04:51:35 pm

Excellent post - not just for this programme but for so much of the current rhetoric on education which is rooted in a political ideology, a slavish (though naive) adoration of PISA and a general simplistic solution position. One small type you have Shanghai rather than Singapore just above the Maths position image.

Reply

Jack Marwood

6/2/2016 10:15:28 pm

Thanks for this - typo updated!

Reply

Paul Flanagan

25/2/2016 03:48:48 pm

I really shouldn't post this. I should be designing some insipid and tedious lessons for my students but, whatever, their misery can wait...

This really is an interesting article, if only to (see how some people have chosen to portray) Mossbourne. They state that we see ("a class of clearly bored and resentful teenagers". No, no, no. This is a simple summary. This is a serious allegation. It's also not true.) It is a really useful article to read (if only to see how distorted a picture) of Mossbourne can be created from 17 seconds of a documentary. Some writers cannot help but (demonstrate their systemic - and often deliberate – misunderstanding) of a school that they likely have no idea about. - Words in brackets from article above

Having read your article and found myself often nodding along to the analysis and rebuttal of the accepted wisdom and orthodoxy presented in the programme, I was incredibly disappointed with your lazy and predictable dismissal of Mossbourne. You clearly took pleasure (sorry, too presumptuous of me - I don't know you) in characterising the students seen on film, and the institution by proxy. The only problem is it is a grossly unfair and inaccurate assessment. I should know - I was there! It is my class (a student had seen your YouTube clip and we had a laugh about it today).

Unfortunately, much like the BBC, you have taken an editorial approach that seems to do one thing: embellish your narrative. Believe it or not, the BBC filmed forty minutes of what I thought was a decent lesson (with lots of enthusiastic and engaged responses from the students). They kept two shots: the reflection and a 1 second clip of students looking bored (can't argue with that!). I am not totally sure why they performed such a hatchet job as it appears to undermine their argument. I think I have a pretty good idea as to why you included it.

I guess I am confused as to why you have ridiculed lazy distortion and manipulation throughout your piece but then proceeded to extrapolate an entire picture of Mossbourne being some sort of educational dystopia (its 2000 students and 300 staff) from less than 30 seconds of footage. It would be nice if you applied the same level of rigour and research to this part of your article. You clearly took the time to edit and post a YouTube clip but I wonder if you sought any opinion about Mossbourne that might contest your characterisation. Indeed, I wonder if you questioned your presumptions at all. Did it occur to you that perhaps the reason they look less than enthused is because they didn't want to be filmed? (They didn't). Unlike celebrity-teacher bloggers, these students don't constantly seek approval and validation online, well, at least not from a BBC Wales documentary.

Thank you though. I now have a lesson idea for Monday. We'll use your descriptions (and those of Janet Downs) as a starter activity; we're doing a creative writing unit (fiction). They'll love that!

Reply

Jack Marwood

25/2/2016 09:13:04 pm

Hi Paul,

Firstly, thanks you very much for posting this comment - I really do appreciate you taking the time to do so. And thanks for confirming that the children didn't want to be filmed, you are correct in thinking that it might have occurred to me that did suggest itself as one of the reasons the class look they way they do in the film (It had).

I am - as many are - always interested in portrayals of Mossbourne, and I'm sure that the selective use of filming in your class is hugely frustrating. But as I wrote, "we get to see the Mossbourne Pledge in all its glory, with a class of clearly bored and resentful teenagers imbuing the school mantra with as much lifeless and dreary tedium as they clearly feel for it."

I wasn't criticising your class, or your teaching, just making the observation that the class look bored and resentful *whilst reciting the Pledge*. You've confirmed that this is how they felt, haven't you? So was my comment unfair?

I'd happily amend the later line, adding 'at the academy', so it reads, "It would appear that this isn’t quite delivered with Dead Poet’s Society-like fervour, and the children don’t exactly look thrilled to be filmed whilst at the academy (below)." Would that be a more fair?

Finally, yes, I am hugely interested in what happens at Mossbourne, as are many people. For many obvious reasons, it's a source of fascination. I read all that I can about it, and am following its development as closely as I can. Thank you for getting in touch, and I'll drop you a line when I get the time.

Jack

Reply

Janet Downs

26/2/2016 09:57:03 am

Hi Paul

Thanks for your comment which raises the question as to why the pupils were subjected to being filmed if they didn't want to be. That would certainly explain the resentful look on their faces.

I'm pleased you're presenting my comments about Mossbourne to your class (presumably this has been done by now - I'd be interested in the results). I'd be particularly interested in their view about the repeated mantra (is it really true they have to say this before every lesson?) and their comments on my observation (backed up by the School Performance Tables so it can hardly be dismissed as 'creative writing') that each GCSE cohort at Mossbourne is becoming increasingly skewed towards the higher ability end. In 2015, the GCSE cohort at Mossbourne comprised 37% previously high-attaining pupils (as measured by KS2 results), 44% previously middle attainers and 19% previously low attaining pupils. In 2011, the GCSE cohort was 23% previously high-attaining pupils, 52% middle-attaining pupils and 25% previously low-attaining pupils.

Reply

Paul Flanagan

26/2/2016 05:57:02 pm

Hi Janet,

My main gripe with the characterisation is the term 'resentful'. I can accept that the students appear to be bored during their recital of the mantra (fyi this was the second take as the BBC camera crew wished to get what they were looking for) but I feel that you are imbuing these teenagers with a resentment that belongs to yourself (possibly to do with how much MCA is held up a measuring stick for others). These students don't give it much thought. Like the register, it is part of the routine of the classroom. What they do resent however is being spoken for. I constantly tell my students to infer, but also triangulate and develop their points based on readings that are more than surface level. I only ask that you do the same. The irony of my point is that the article above is all about the dangers of received wisdom and jumping to conclusions.

We haven't looked at your description yet but I am sure they will be interested to analyse your heavily loaded word 'conscripts'. We are looking at dystopian description so it will be a lovely pivot. They may 'resent' your characterisation, we shall see.

On your second point about intake, I can understand how a reading of that data set might lead to a conclusion about a perceived skewering. However, I take issue with your selection. Why have you failed to include data from 2012-2014 that clearly shows relative stasis for intake percentages? You appear to have cherry-picked the two sets of data that enhance your argument (again, incredibly irritating when considering the content of the article above these comments!). The drift is from middle to high. For four years straight our low-attaining cohort remains the same (actually increased a percentage point on last year). This drift from MA to HA is interesting in and of itself, but once more I plead with you not to rush to judgement. Think about other mitigating factors in this multi-faceted and complex arena.

For example, have you researched the performance of Primary schools in Hackney, especially those that feed MCA? Have you thought about the rapid regeneration/gentrification of Hackney over the last 5 years (and it's surrounding area) and how this might have transformational effects for the young people living here (good and bad). And finally, did you know that we now have two primary schools and that one of those is our largest feeder school for current intake? Perhaps (I say this cautiously, as I don't KNOW the answer) this has had a positive effect on outcomes at KS2. Perhaps the KS2 data is misleading? Lots of variables here.

One thing that I do know are the figures for EAL (47.7% this year compared to 33.2% in 2011) and FSM (49.0% this year compared to 35.9% in 2011), suggesting our intake is more comprehensive and diverse than ever!

Thanks for responding. I mean all of my criticisms solely in the spirit of passion and commitment to my students and the work that we do.

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Me?
I work in primary education and have done for ten years. I also have children
in primary school. I love teaching, but I think that school is a thin layer of icing on top of a very big cake, and that the misunderstanding of test scores is killing the love of teaching and learning.